ABSTRACT
“As a rule history is “Protestant” not “Catholic” – its primary feature being institutional, cultural and ideological diversity. But episodically history has its “Catholic moments” when universal ideological word becomes an institutional flesh” and when there is a powerful feeling that history is heading to a certain destination. 1 The post-Cold war period was such a “Catholic moment”. At least for while Western liberal democracies looked as the final stop in human history. Contrary to the experience of the past at the end of the last century neither God/tradition, nor revolution/ideology could grant governments “the moral title to rule”. The will of the people as expressed in free and fair elections has become the only source of legitimate government that modern societies are ready to accept. The global spread of elections – frequently free and sometimes fair – and the universal acceptance of the language of human rights have become the distinctive feature of politics in the beginning of the new century. While the earlier generation of democratic theorists was preoccupied with the question “what makes democracy work and last” the new post-1989 democratic theory has become overwhelmed by democracy’s universal appeal, the emergence and survival of democratic regimes in unlikely places and in diverse cultural and economic environments.
